Fight Continues over Regulatory Treatment of Short Codes
CTIA said the FCC should “reject outright” Mobile Internet Content Coalition (MICC) arguments that net neutrality principles should be applied to SMS text messaging services and wireless carriers’ review of content providers’ marketing proposals. CTIA “misses the point” of the MICC arguments, Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld told us Monday in response to the CTIA filing.
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Public interest groups led by Public Knowledge petitioned the commission in December 2007, after Verizon Wireless refused at first to issue a text messaging short code to abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America. The group asked the FCC to clarify that text messages are protected by the anti-discrimination provisions of Title II of the Communications Act. The arguments have continued since. In April, MICC asked the FCC to address the issue as part of its net neutrality rulemaking.
"The record developed in this proceeding demonstrates that none of the six principles proposed as broadband network operator obligations in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking should be applied to wireless broadband networks, let alone to the wireless non-broadband messaging and marketing services” as proposed by the MICC, CTIA said. “Nothing in the record in this proceeding justifies impeding this vibrant market with a sudden reversal of the deregulatory policies that have been applied to wireless broadband."
"The question is not whether the wireless market is competitive or whether some level of ‘innovation’ is happening as measured by whatever metric seems useful to the carriers,” Feld responded. “What matters is that we have a communications network through which millions of Americans send literally billions of messages on a regular basis with absolutely no accountability in case something goes wrong. As a result, consumers and businesses can find themselves cut off indefinitely, and with no recourse, while aggregators, carriers, and customers try to sort things out.”
Meanwhile, Public Knowledge held a forum Friday on short-code issues. Public Knowledge Communications Director Art Brodsky said on the group’s blog the session found widespread concerns among companies building business models that rely on the use of short codes from carriers. “The short code world is a Byzantine one, with service providers needing to negotiate a world that includes all of the cellular carriers, a layer of service aggregators who actually work with the carriers, and industry groups dominated by the carriers,” Brodsky wrote. It can cost $500 monthly for a random short code, or $1,000 monthly for a vanity code specially made for a product or campaign, with rates set by carriers, he said. “There is no competition or choice. The service providers have to pay those rates during the time that carriers evaluate their proposals for using the codes, which can take as long as 12 to 15 weeks,” Brodsky said. “As a result, many small businesses are shut out of short codes unless the service providers share the code among several clients. On one hand, that’s a good thing because it cuts the cost. On the other hand, when something bad happens, it happens to everyone.”